


my orange space shuttle flyin' two seats

by seinmit



Series: Writing the Rainbow [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anti-Anxiety Drugs Dispensed Without Asking Permission, First Time, Hand Jobs, Lost in space - Freeform, M/M, Mutually Mildly Dubious Consent, Sweetness and Smut in the Terror of Space, Virgin Loki, Wet pinecone dick, Xeno, vivid description of a panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 10:23:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20946773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seinmit/pseuds/seinmit
Summary: Loki didn't know how to fly the spaceship. This meant they were stranded, floating in space, hurtling in an unknown trajectory away from an explosion their allies likely assumed fatal.Bucky was trying not to think aboutthatand this meant he was doing a lot of thinking about Loki.





	my orange space shuttle flyin' two seats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).

> Check the endnotes for spoilery warnings about the panic attack and anti-anxiety drugs!
> 
> Title from Codeine Dreaming by Kodak Black.

“Why do they keep sending me on missions with a cretin like you?” Loki said, with a snarl, gripping a knife in his hand like he would’ve thrown it if they weren’t floating in a tin-can through the infinite vastness of space. “Why am I on missions at all? I am a _prince_.”

Loki was fond of rhetorical questions, especially when he could spit them out infused with high dudgeon. Bucky had long since learned that the best response was to mildly answer them—best both in that it got the funniest reaction and it was actually effective in calming him down. It was especially good when he got to earnestly tell Loki information he already knew. 

“Well,” he said, drawling it out. Loki didn’t have nearly enough Earth cultural literacy to appreciate the depth of what Bucky was doing—or even enough to know that his contempt was supposed to increase at the hint of an accent—but Bucky was pretty proud of how much he nailed John Wayne in one syllable. It was a person sort of thing, to remember favorite actors. 

He imagined himself chewing a sweet sprig of Wakandan hay. “You’re on missions because it’s one of the things you agreed to when New Asgard leased land in Wakanda.” 

Bucky wasn’t done speaking, but Loki rolled his eyes and turned to poke at the instrument panel of the shuttle they were standing in, showing Bucky his back.

“And me? I think they have me pal around with you because I’ve got a lot of practice handling the highly-strung,” he continued cheerfully. 

Loki turned back to him and made one of Bucky’s favorite faces, the one where he couldn’t decide to be outraged or disgusted—it was the face he always made when Bucky even alluded to Steve, much less his friendship with him. Lately, Bucky was starting to get the sense that Loki was actively _jealous_ and honestly, Bucky couldn’t help finding that pretty great. 

“I’m a comfort goat,” he said. “I’ve an easy-going, go-along sorta nature. It comes from all the years of torture.” 

“You smell like a goat,” Loki muttered. 

It wasn’t hard to make his sigh sound wistful, at that. 

“I wish,” he said. “D’you think Stupid has had her kid yet?” 

“I do not know anything about your goats,” he said. “My usually flawless memory seems to let those details slip through the cracks like water.” 

He sniffed. "I think it has to do with your ridiculous naming conventions."

"Her name is a hope and a prayer," Bucky said. "Right now, she's too smart for my good."

That priggishness was a good sign. Loki’s breathing had calmed down and he was looking a little less like he was going to vibrate apart from sheer rage. Bucky had no problem dealing with Loki when he was all insults and pride, but he preferred the casual snot that was his more normal posture. And now that he was back to a simmer and no longer in any danger of boiling over, Bucky stood up to go examine the console of the ship with him. 

“You know how to fly this thing?” he asked. The text was strange and looping, different even than that of the alien warship they had just blown up. They hadn’t intended on any explosions, but their espionage mission had gone wrong enough that it had seemed wisest to destroy as much of the warship as they could on their way out of dodge. 

Loki sneered at him and moved away from the console to go examine the sleek metal cabinets on the walls. That was a no on the knowing how to fly the ship and in another situation, Bucky would have pointed it out, but they were too on edge. He had to calibrate the needling to calm and not accidentally overshoot him into genuine anger. 

Reminding Loki that if he didn’t know how to fly the ship they were stuck here, floating in space, catapulted into god-knows-what trajectory by the explosion, with their allies probably assuming that they’d been _incinerated_, and half a solar-system away on Earth besides—yeah. Bucky probably shouldn’t spend much time reminding himself of all that, either. 

He sighed, pushing his knuckles into his eyes, and let himself feel all of that, just for a moment, the entire situation they were in. He closed his eyes, dropping both hands flat against his thighs, and focused on the solidity of the steel under his boots, tried to stay there and not the swooping emptiness a couple inches beyond that. 

Something hit him square in the forehead and he startled, catching it as it bounced back down. It crinkled a little in his grip—a ration bar of some sort. 

“It likely will not kill you,” Loki said. “The atmospheric mix is compatible with Midgardian biology, so the food should be harmless.” 

He transferred it from his metal hand to his flesh one, as if he could tell the compatibility that way. It just made it easier to feel the metallic texture of the wrapping. 

“How much of that stuff do we got?” he asked, looking over at Loki. 

“It says two-week emergency rations,” he said. “But we have no idea of the caloric needs of the intended passengers of this ship.” 

Bucky examined the two chairs in front of the console, facing toward the window out into blackness. His eyes slid over it uneasily, focusing on the furniture. They were built for creatures considerably larger than either he or Loki. This place wasn’t roomy for two humans—but judging by how the chairs took up most available floor-space, it’d be near to a coffin for whoever was supposed to be using the craft. 

It was hard to say if they had sufficient food. They were smaller, but both he and Loki were unusually _dense_ so to speak. 

He stuck it in his pocket, not bothering to argue but thinking it was far too soon to start in on the food. He was still thinking clearly. He’d survive starvation for a long, long time, but his cognitive capacity would go pretty quick. 

“Find anything else useful?” he said. 

Loki didn’t bother answering him and threw himself down on one of the giant chairs. It made him look like a child in a sulk. Bucky didn’t show a trace of his amusement, though, not at that. Only Loki was allowed to condescend in their relationship. He did let himself spend a selfish moment looking at him, gaining some small amount of comfort in the way his annoyance was well-within normal range. Last time he sulked like that, it was because Thor had predicted the latest maneuver in what Bucky called their prank war and Loki insisted was actual attempted fratricide. 

He only looked away when Loki met his gaze and held it.

Bucky examined the console again. He still couldn’t read anything on it. 

“Even if you could read it, you would not be able to pilot,” Loki said, sounding pointedly bored. “It is entirely abbreviations and acronyms.” 

Bucky frowned, turning to the cabinets. 

“I _already_ looked for a manual,” Loki said. 

The tightness in Bucky’s jaw increased, the sensation shooting up his teeth and right up to throb at his temple.

“I’m going to take a nap,” he said. It was long practice that kept his voice mild. He sat down against the wall, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and closed his eyes. 

He could feel the itchy strange feeling of a cut on his cheekbone rapidly healing and he was bruised from the fight. A flying piece of spaceship had gotten him right in the kidney in the airlock, the ship disintegrating around them. 

He tried to remember the grounding moment where they’d slammed into this little cell, how lucky he’d felt that it had been there. They were lucky. He counted his breaths, repeating _lucky lucky lucky_, over and over, to the rhythm of his lungs. 

He couldn’t hold on to the relief, though, his body winding back from that grateful breath to the sick sense of a ship disintegrating around him, the sudden weightlessness and bitter cold, the way he couldn’t fill his lungs because there was so much nothing that even the air was swallowed up by void. It was like falling, but worse—it was like there was nothing in the world anymore but falling. 

His breath picked up and he could feel himself spiraling, his chest got tight—he felt swallowed up by the blackness. He opened his eyes, because even the dark of his eyelids felt like too much and he threw his arms away from his chest, as if they were constricting his lungs, but it didn’t help, it didn’t help. They were going to fall forever, in this little tin can, and they’d be entombed here in the cold darkness of space, and the thing is, the thing is that he’d probably not die—some time in the future he’d land somewhere and everything would be gone, again, he’d have to—

“Buck—“ he heard Steve say, and he blinked, focusing on the familiar blond face in front of him, looking concerned. 

“Jesus _christ_,” he said, choking on the words and trying to scramble away, his mind whiting out in panic. “Jesus christ—“

He was supposed to find pieces of the world around him to ground himself, but Steve wasn’t here, it wasn’t real—

There was an alarm notification in a language he didn’t understand, a hiss, a sweet smell in the air. 

Steve looked up, sharp-eyed and concerned—the expression was so simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar that Bucky was jolted back into his body, enough to reach out and shove Loki, hard. “Stop it. Right now, come back.” 

Loki shook off Steve’s body like it was distasteful. 

“I was _trying_ to be helpful,” he said. “Give you the face of someone you trusted to help you calm down.” 

“I trust _you_, you moron,” Bucky said, breathless and chest heaving. “You just made me think I was totally round the bend.” 

He closed his eyes and pushed both hands into the floor, hard enough he could hear the scrape of metal-on-metal. One physical thing to ground himself in. Smell—he could smell his own blood, sweat, the leather of Loki’s armor, and that powdery unfamiliar sweetness.

There was a long, strange silence. Bucky’s panic drained out of his body. Normally it left him feeling tired and sweaty and ashamed, but there was a warmth building in his belly, a strange sense of sinking into a bath. He was used to his body throwing strange sensations at him and if it had to get weird, this wasn’t a bad way. The big muscles around his spine released tension that he didn’t know he could lose. 

He sighed, shook his head a little, and opened his eyes to chew Loki out. 

Loki’s eyes were wide and stunned. He was studying Bucky, minute movements of his pupils going up and down Bucky’s body. 

“You meant that,” he said, with finality, when he saw Bucky’s eyes open. “You were in no state for polite fiction.” 

It took Bucky a second and then he followed what had hit Loki like this. 

“Yes,” he said, simply. “I did mean it.” 

Loki’s hands curled into fists and he lunged at Bucky—Bucky had the lightning thought that his trust was being tested, that Loki was going to put a knife to his throat and see if he flinched, and he was grateful for the strange glowing warmth underneath his skin, because maybe he trusted Loki, but he was still a twitchy kinda guy—

But then Loki’s teeth clacked against his own and his tongue pushed, wet, into Bucky’s mouth. Bucky froze, surprised and moving slowly from the aftermath of adrenaline and whatever smelled so sweet, long enough that he felt Loki’s mouth tighten, felt it against his _own lips_, and Loki started to pull back, and—fuck that. 

Bucky grabbed him by the hair, hauled him back, and tilted his head so they were kissing more gracefully, making space for both their noses. 

“This isn’t to say that I haven’t thought about this,” Bucky said. “But I think we’ve been drugged.” 

It felt a little like the anxiety PRN that Shuri had concocted for him, back when he was having panic attacks more frequently. The world had a strange sort of cottony distance around them both, the feel of Loki’s body clumsily perched on his lap the only real thing. 

“What have you thought about?” Loki said, shifting to bite at Bucky’s neck—too hard, maybe, enough so his body jerked, but Bucky wasn’t going to tell him to stop. The needy eagerness in the way Loki mouthed restlessly at his pulse point, scraping his teeth on the stubble on the underside of his jaw, was its own reward. 

Bucky tried to soothe him by spreading both hands flat on his back, holding him down and in his lap, making it clear he didn’t want him to go anywhere. He tilted his face away from Loki, peered down at him. His eyes were glittering, dark and almost feral. 

“What did the ship say?” Bucky asked. He was calm and he wasn’t sure if it was unnatural or if it was just his reflex when faced with Loki’s flurry of eager motion, much in the same way that he always felt better when Loki was throwing a fit about something and Bucky got the chance to calm him down. 

“Alert,” Loki said. “Initiating ataraxic protocol.”

“And now with a word I’d know,” he said, digging his knuckles into the small of Loki’s back, helplessly fond at the pettiness of the ten dollar word. 

“It is the best word,” Loki said, indignant. “Not implying sleep, like sedative. Just—removing emotional disturbance and anxiety.”

“Not a bad feature for a lifeboat,” he said. “You want this?” 

“I kissed you,” Loki said, flatly. He started to pull away, but Bucky increased the pressure on his metal hand, an implicit appeal for him to stay where he was. 

Loki subsided long enough to glare at Bucky, his mouth twisted up in a sneer. 

“Would you prefer I have a panic attack too?” 

That was enough for Bucky to make up his mind, because of course—this was better. He’d had a lot of shitty moments in his life and one of the things he’d learned to stop questioning were those rare times when his brain let him off the hook. Sure, maybe now it was helped along by alien happy gas, but he felt good and Loki was warm and heavy on top of him and he’d been thinking about this for long enough that he’d be fine if Loki’s knee ended up slipping into his balls like it was threatening to. It would be worth it. 

He smiled at Loki, feeling it stretch his whole face, and the dazed look that came to Loki’s eyes just made him smile wider. 

“Swell,” Bucky said and maneuvered Loki’s head back into a position where they could kiss properly. 

Loki couldn’t seem to stop moving, kissing in an unsteady, too fierce rhythm. He shifted his body around on Bucky’s lap enough that Bucky had to move his hands off Loki’s back, use them to reach between them and guide Loki’s thighs around his hips. 

“Settle down,” Bucky said. “I’ve got nowhere to go.” 

“Glad to know I’m a more attractive prospect than empty space,” Loki said, prickly. 

Bucky tugged his hair, gentle and indulgent. “C’mon, kiss me.”

Loki did and Bucky guided him until it was smooth, slick. Something he could sink into. He could feel himself getting hard and he rocked his hips up into Loki, almost idly looking for friction. 

The small gesture caused Loki to freeze and go tense. 

“Hey,” Bucky said, forcing himself still. “Sorry, I’ll—"

Loki’s tension morphed into something else entirely and he bit Bucky’s bottom lip, a shocking spark of pain in all the liquid warmth. He moaned and then it shifted into a yelp when Loki shoved one hand down Bucky’s tac pants, not even bothering to undo the belt buckle and making the waistband pull tight against his skin. 

And then Loki’s hand curled around his dick, rough and cramped and squeezing too hard. It was perfect. It was exactly what he needed, in this floaty alien high—it reminded him of who he was and who _Loki_ was, and that it was them, underneath it all. The intimacy they’d built up over the last six months of missions meant that Bucky knew exactly that stubborn tilt to his jaw and he hadn’t planned to pressure Loki into touching his dick, but in retrospect, the tone he’d taken couldn’t have been more perfectly designed to push Loki past any hesitation—Loki was often motivated mostly by spite and Bucky attempting to let him off the hook would make him cling to it.

Bucky didn’t laugh—this wasn’t the moment to laugh, Loki wouldn’t hear how enamored he felt, but he let his head tilt back and he smiled up at the ceiling. 

“That’s good,” he said and then bit his own lip in preemptive amusement. “I’m surprised.” 

Loki’s hand squeezed him hard, enough that he jerked his hips up helplessly and what could have been a giggle turned into a moan. 

“That was a lie,” he said, because at the end of the day Bucky was a nicer guy then he pretended to be. “I’m not surprised, I always imagined you’d be so good.” 

At that, Loki made a small sound in his throat, a clicking noise of swallowing hard. He tucked his face into Bucky’s bared neck and bit down. 

“Stop talking,” he said, muffled by a mouthful of Bucky’s skin. Bucky knew better than to listen to him. 

“Sorry, pal,” he said. “You don’t scare me.” 

He could feel the shudder that pulled out of Loki and marveled at it. He wondered where this vulnerability came from, if they would lose it when the drugs wore off—he wasn’t sure he could say goodbye, now that he’d seen it. 

“Magic hands. You’ve got great hands.” 

The angle had to be hurting Loki’s wrist, but he was determined to get Bucky off, moving fast and hard and perfect. It wasn’t dry anymore—his hand moved slick, Bucky's foreskin creating an easy glide, and Bucky realized he was soaking. His pants were sticking to the skin of his thighs, sodden with liquid, and there was an intense sea breeze smell he didn’t recognize. 

He was too curious to hold himself back and he eased his flesh hand between them. Loki’s pants had the strange swollen texture of leather saturated with liquid and Bucky was intensely curious. 

He rubbed the bulge on the front of Loki’s pants and felt more liquid seep through. 

“Can I?” he said. 

“This isn’t charity,” Loki said. Bucky could hear the scowl, but he could hear the nerves too. 

“I dunno,” Bucky said. “It still feels like you’re giving me gifts.” 

He took it as permission, though, and unlatched the flap of leather that was over Loki’s groin and then pushed his hand down the cotton under-layer that Bucky was grateful to discover he wore. 

He didn’t need warning that what he felt was going to be alien, not with all this liquid, and his heart beat faster at what he might find. He had indulged himself, in imagining what Loki might be packing, but his fantasies had mostly stayed nonspecific: flesh, heat, musk. 

He couldn’t have imagined this, but now he wasn’t ever going to forget. Loki’s cock—for lack of a better word—was a little more than a perfect handful, shockingly hot. When he touched it, thin liquid gushed out enough to soak his hand and Loki’s shuddered, letting out an aspirated breath that was almost a moan.

“What feels good?” Bucky said. He could hear how rough his voice was and he hoped Loki could too, he hoped Loki could tell how hot this was to Bucky. 

“Pressure,” Loki said. “And. The scales expand. The skin that is revealed is very sensitive.” 

He spoke haltingly, clearly striving for clinical but missing by a mile. Bucky took the guidance eagerly, doing his best to press the pads of his fingers between the flaring layers. 

There was just so much fucking liquid. 

“God, you’re going to fill me right up,” Bucky said. “I’m going to be soaking with you.” 

Loki groaned, enough that Bucky could feel the vibration in his own chest, and Bucky couldn’t help it—he thrust up hard, once, twice, and came with a heavy grunt. His hand contracted reflexively around Loki’s cock, making him curse, thighs pushing into Bucky’s hips and his cock going rigid, losing the pliant spongy quality and expanding rapidly in circumference. The scales flared out into Bucky’s grip, turning hard, almost the texture of chitin. 

“Squeeze,” Loki said. 

Bucky increased the pressure and yanked Loki’s head up so he could kiss him, wanting to taste the noises he was making. 

“I’ll be so tight for you,” he promised, into Loki’s mouth. “Just you wait—"

“Shut up, “ Loki said and kissed him, hard. He was a fast learner and he had Bucky’s head spinning. He kept his hand wrapped around Bucky’s softening cock and it was almost too much, too sensitive—but Bucky recognized it as reciprocity, as being in this moment together, and Bucky would gladly take the aching feeling of being pushed past his limit for the joy of Loki doing to Bucky what he wanted Bucky to do to him. 

Loki kept kissing him and kissing him. Bucky didn’t know how long it took and was grateful that the part of his mind that usually couldn’t ever abandon operational security was silent. Finally, Loki slipped his hand out of Bucky’s pants. Loki’s cock softened all at once, folding up into a smooth pointed cone. He couldn’t even feel the borders of the scales, anymore. 

All at once, Loki got up and stalked away from Bucky, going to the cabinets. Bucky was boneless and content to laze on the floor. He’d teach Loki to cuddle, he told himself. It’d take time, but he’d always been stubborn. While Loki wasn’t looking, he licked his hand to taste what he’d been smelling this whole time—it was briny, with a strange note almost like vanilla. Honestly, he’d eat ice cream flavored like this and the thought made him snicker. 

Loki threw a pouch full of liquid at him, a heavy frown on his face. 

“Thank you,” Bucky said and resisted making a joke about who actually needed the hydration.

He smiled at Loki and something in Loki’s face softened, went a little uncertain. He looked away. 

“Are you some kinda sex god, too?” Bucky said, not having to fake his deep satisfaction. 

He ripped the corner of the pouch with his teeth and sucked out some of the liquid—normal tasting water, thank god—and watched Loki’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. He was startled, a little pleased. 

“Hey—“ Bucky started, not sure where exactly he was going with this, but feeling like he had something to say. 

Loki’s posture changed, going tense and staring out the window. Bucky went tense as well, but his eyes flickered around the cabin for where he’d put his gun. 

The sigh Loki let out after a moment was maybe the most sincere expression of relief that Bucky’d ever heard from him. 

“Captain Danvers is here,” he said. 

She hovered in front of the glass, filling up the blackness with her yellow light. 

“Gentlemen,” she said. “I’m here to give you a lift.” 

Her voice had a strange, echoing quality, but it was clear even through the thick material. 

Bucky scrambled to his feet and resisted the urge to salute. 

“God, thank you. You’re a life-saver.” 

“I’d have been here faster if Laufreyson had deigned to come let us know where you were,” she said, shooting him a look. 

Loki jerked his chin up, but didn’t reply. Bucky’s breath caught as he realized—yes, that’s right. Loki could use his magic to move through space. They were mid-solar system, but surely they weren’t so far out of range that he couldn’t reach—

And then, Loki’s eyes pointedly skipped past Bucky as he turned around to go back and hide in the cabinet, and Bucky knew. 

Loki couldn’t bring mortals, when he traveled like that. Loki hadn’t wanted to leave him alone.

Bucky went to grab a ration bar out of the cabinet as an excuse to touch Loki's hip. Loki stiffened and then relaxed. And then, wondrously, he shot Bucky a small, sincere smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> Bucky has a panic attack about being lost in space and the alien spaceship releases aerosolized anti-anxiety medication as part of its emergency protocol. It ends up relaxing them and reducing their inhibitions, but they are able to talk rationally about the sex they're having and it feels consensual to both of them. The drug administration, despite being non-consensual, is not understood traumatically by either of them.
> 
> Also: over the first 24 hours of this fic being posted there were several small changes, most noticeably adding a few lines to the ending. Thanks for your patience!


End file.
